5 Things Keeping You from Finishing Your Book

Do you have an unfinished book sitting on your desk or languishing away on your computer?

If so, you’re not alone. Finishing a book is hard, perhaps one of the most difficult tasks a person can undertake. 

If you’ve committed to writing a book, below are five roadblocks that may keep you from finishing it, along with a few suggestions for breaking through them. 

1. Shiny Object Syndrome

Sometimes called a “disease of distraction,” shiny object syndrome (SOS) describes a condition in which a person chases one idea after the other but never takes any of them to completion. It stems from a love of new things and is probably the reason why you have a lot of ideas for stories but not a lot of finished books.

SOS tends to come on strong when you’re in the middle of a project like a novel. You may be struggling with the story, trying to figure out plot, characterization, and theme, when SOS draws your attention away, distracting you with other ideas that seem like better ideas. 

If you change gears and go after these other ideas, you may feel better for a short time, but inevitably, your new projects will get difficult too (as they all do at some point), and once again, you’ll be vulnerable to SOS. A new idea will appear you’re convinced is a better idea, and off you’ll go again, starting a new story. 

This often creates one big problem: you never get anything done. And for many writers, this is one of the main reasons their books remain unfinished.

Solution: Once you’ve committed to a story and invested significant time into it, it’s almost always better to finish it—no matter the quality—than to abandon it for another, supposedly “better” idea. You learn more by finishing than by quitting early. So write your other ideas down somewhere, and save them for later!

2. Perfectionism

Perfectionism is the enemy of completion. If you have perfectionist tendencies, you try to do everything perfectly, including every chapter and every paragraph. Your constant striving for perfectionism and fear of failure can easily keep you from ever finishing your book.

As a perfectionist, you may also find it difficult to fit writing into your life. You tend to work extra hard at everything you do, which can leave you with little time to work on your creative tasks. This can easily lead to chronic stress and eventually, to burnout. At that point, it’s easy to give up on your project because you feel like you simply have no way to get it done.

Solution: Practice being happy with “good enough,” particularly on a first draft. Allow less-than-perfect scenes to exist. As long as they move the story along, you can always go back and polish later. 

3. Self-doubt

Self-doubt keeps you from taking your writing seriously, which can lead to all sorts of roadblocks between you and that finished book. You aren’t likely to carve out enough writing time for yourself because you lack confidence in your talent, and you may see your work through a flawed lens, always finding what’s “wrong” with it and discovering reasons why it won’t succeed on the marketplace.

You may imagine that one day you’ll be good enough, skilled enough, creative enough, accomplished enough, or whatever to ditch self-doubt, but this is rarely the case. Self-doubt often clings to creative artists, no matter their level of outward success.

Solution: Make peace with the fact that you may feel doubt about your abilities and your story, and keep writing anyway. You owe it to yourself to finish the book just to see what you might be able to do with it. Allow for the possibility that all of your negative opinions about your writing ability may be wrong.

4. Allowing Life to Interfere

If anything is true about life, it is that it will interfere with the best-laid plans. Just when you start to gain momentum on your story, something will happen to take you away from it. You or your partner will lose a job. One of your kids or your parents will fall ill. The car will break down. Some financial issue will come up. The possibilities are endless. 

Unfortunately, many writers use these life events as excuses for why they don’t finish their books. “I lost my momentum,” one might say, “and just couldn’t get going again.”

Solution: First, accept that life will interfere, then commit to starting over again when you can. Yes, it’s difficult after losing your momentum, but there are secrets to tricking yourself into getting started when you don’t feel like it. 

Tell yourself you’ll write for only five minutes, for example, or take yourself out to a favorite café and work there. Learn which tricks work for you and get used to starting over whenever you have to, multiple times if necessary.

5. A Lack of Desire

I’ve experienced all of these roadblocks and more on my way to finishing my novels, but one thing kept me going no matter what—a deep desire to finish my story. Often I had a close connection to my characters or a strong compulsion to share the theme of the story, that wouldn’t let me go. Without this strong desire, many writers never reach the finish line. 

Solution: Make sure before you start work on a book that your desire to finish it is strong. Choose only those projects that have deep meaning for you.

—

Note: For more guidance on how to finish the creative projects you start—including the 5 things you must have to complete your book—get Colleen’s FREE mini-course here!

Colleen M. Story inspires writers to overcome modern-day challenges and find creative fulfillment in their work. Her latest release, Writer Get Noticed!, was the gold-medal winner in the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards (Writing/Publishing 2019). Overwhelmed Writer Rescue was named Book by Book Publicity’s Best Writing/Publishing Book in 2018, and her novel, Loreena’s Gift, was a Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Book of the Year Awards winner, among others. Find more at these sites:

Writing and Wellness | Writer CEO | Teachable | Author Website | Twitter

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing